Doug Beman Posted December 27, 2000 Share Posted December 27, 2000 panzertruppen has a very good point: re-fighting historical battles as a tactical study is (so I've read and been told) commonplace in military training. If a brand-new ROTC cadet refights Corregidor and arrives at the same conclusion that Trotter did, what makes the ROTC cadet not "demeaning" in the way that Trotter supposedly was? I don't mean any offense, but why does Trotter lose the right-or-privilege to examine military history and offer hypotheses because he's a civilian? DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spear Posted December 27, 2000 Share Posted December 27, 2000 Like many other CMBO players, I would never even have found out about CMBO if it hadn't been for Trotter's review. I enjoy his column and his reviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake Eyes Posted December 27, 2000 Share Posted December 27, 2000 Trotter and the rest of us can use a little sensitivity training from time to time. It's one thing to compare a vet's notes to a simulation/game to see if the game is somewhat accurate. It's quite another matter to play a game and say, "If only you had done this or that, you would have won." There are still many WWII vets alive and to criticize their efforts, even in a relatively minor way as Trotter did, can be thoughtless and insensitive. These vets suffered the hardships of war firsthand. They lost close friends and endured things that most of us have only read about. It would be wise to keep this in mind when critiquing a battle while some of the participants are still around. However, alternative history is one of the reasons most wargamers recreate battles. I would venture to say that all of us have, at one time or another, done the same thing that Trotter did. The only difference being he has a public platform from which to voice his conclusions. In such a case it is important to remember that there are folks out there that may be offended by an amateur's opinion. And the fact that this opinion is based on a game tends to trivialize a veteran's efforts. I am sure that none of us want to offend veterans of wars past. We must keep that in mind when we offer our opinions and alternate strategies. A clear disclaimer up front should suffice. Trotter did the right thing by publishing the letter. It made me think a little about what I've said in the past and how I might consider my words in the future. ------------------ It is easy to be brave from a safe distance. -Aesop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monte99 Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Doug Beman: re-fighting historical battles as a tactical study is (so I've read and been told) commonplace in military training. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is true, and the military should use whatever works, commercial computer games included. The thing about military training though, is that it's supplemented by a large measure of real-world experience with variables that cannot (so far) be modeled in any game. Chief among these is the possibility of getting personally killed or maimed. For most of us, games like CM are as close as we're going to get to a real battlefield. My point is that while we can learn a lot about tactics this way, we should accept that the expertise we gain applies primarily to the game. I'm OK with that; Mr. Trotter may have other ideas. ------------------ "Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose." - Don Quixote [This message has been edited by Monte99 (edited 12-27-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humus B. Chittenbee Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 I'm a vet. Volunteered for and served in 'Nam. CM is a GAME! Get over it ------------------ ***Sôphrosunê*** [This message has been edited by Humus B. Chittenbee (edited 12-27-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polar Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 Let me preface this by saying that for many years I was a Social Worker, and I have interviewed hundreds of vets in my time... and I have gone through these kinds of discussions with many of them. That said, let me get to my response: The first time I really got a sense of what Mr. Trotter was talking about was when playing Sid Meyer's Gettysburg... and more to the point, the battle of Little Round Top. Walking the fields of Gettysburg gives you an immediate sense of what SHOULD have been done to take that hill... but it didn't happen. When I got Gettysburg IU immediately loaded that scenario and sent Hood South to run a flanking maneuver... and I'll be damned if the Union didn't fall apart when I swung Hood around on their flanks... But there are a few things to consider (and I think they apply to Trotters article)... 1) Most games will tend to weigh heavily towards hindsight. Trotter isn't the only one who has come up with that conclusion concerning Corregidor. The Scenario he is playing probably weighed heavily on the kill-the-tanks-you-win philosophy. As my Little Round Top scenario was weighted heavily on the side of flanking... since in the game a frontal assault was (as it historically was) suicide... see #3 for further discussion here. 2) People involved in these battles have a strong "nothing more could be done" mentality. It is a coping mechanism... esspecially for vets who are involved in a losing battle. But this is more likely not the case. This is not to be mistaken for the "you did the best you could do" stance that we take when consoling such vets. But they tend to see it as one and the same thing. Again, it's a coping mechanism. What the veteran in this situation probably fails to realize is that revisiting history is not a knock on any one individual. For instance, do I denounce the Confederate soldiers efforts in their Attack on Chamberlain? Hell no... I'm sure they faught as hard as they would have had they attacked the flanks. 3) The bigger point here that most people fail to grasp is the exponentially higher amount of info the you get playing a game than you would actually commanding in a real battle (although that gap get smaller by the day). For instance, I can look and a computer representation of Little Round Top and know for certain that that engagement is suicide... but did Lee have access to that kind of hard info? Nope. Sure, Hood pleaded with him to try the flanking maneuver... but given the intel that Lee had to work with, that maneuver had just as many potential drawbacks as his plan. So who can blame him? Mr. Trotter wasn't saying that the individual soldier was to blame for the defeat.. all he was saying is that given 50 + years to sift through the reports, it has becoming clear to him (and many others) what the key to that battle was.. and he tested it in a simulator and it worked. Had he said that "Even if they took out the tanks, they still would have lost" do you think the vet would be any happier? Hell no. The only way to really make him happy is to never speak of it again, and never (under any circumstances) ever ever EVER try to relive it in any way. Joe ------------------ "I had no shoes and I cried, then I met a man who had no socks." - Fred Mertz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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